Career Spotlights

Latin Teacher

Mark Beckwith '11 took a mythology class while a
student at Grandville High School, so when he came to Grand Valley a
Classics course in Greek sounded interesting.

“I thought it would be cool and give me some bragging rights with
my friends,” he said. “I didn’t realize until the first day of class
that it was about Ancient Greek, which is read, not spoken.”

Undeterred, he dove in and found that he loved it — so much so
that he took four years of Greek, then added Latin, graduating in 2011
with a Latin Secondary Education degree (double major in Classics and
English). Beckwith’s passion led him to a good job market, as there
continues to be a national shortage of qualified Latin teachers.

Since graduating, Beckwith has taught Latin for two years at
Cardigan Mountain School in New Hampshire, a private boarding school
with just over 200 students in grades six through nine. “My wife and I
lived in a dorm with 18 boys on our floor, who we ate family style
meals with three times a day,” said Beckwith. “I also served in an
advisor role and coached basketball and baseball, without any previous
coaching experience.”

Beckwith said the courage to continue to challenge himself comes
in part from Classics faculty members who were very supportive and
provided opportunities. One such opportunity was the result of
Beckwith’s Honors College Senior Project on teaching strategies for
intermediate Latin students. The final product was an article
co-authored with advisor Peter Anderson, associate professor of
Classics. The article presented the results of their research and
was published in a peer-reviewed academic
journal for teachers of the classical languages in North America
and Europe.

“When Mark began interviewing for teaching jobs, he already had
many of the academic experiences usually obtained in graduate school,”
said Anderson. “He also had a string of prestigious awards, including
Distinguished First Year Greek Student and Outstanding Undergraduate
in the College of Education.” Beckwith also received the University’s
Department Award when he graduated.

Others are also taking notice. Beckwith was recently recruited by
a private K-12 school in Utah, where all middle school students are
required to take Latin. “I’m drawn to the opportunity at Waterford
School in part because of the heavy liberal arts focus,” said
Beckwith. “They recognize the interdisciplinary value in the study of
Latin, particularly as preparation for their high school curriculum,
with students drawing from the Latin roots of science terminology, in
studying other languages, and in building critical thinking skills.”

The school was founded 1981 by Waterford Institute, in part to
study how students learn and how they use technology — both are areas
of interest to Beckwith. “At Cardigan I taught a flipped classroom of
students in first through third level Latin at the same time,” he
said. “By creating lecture videos for each level to watch as homework,
we flipped their classroom experience into a work time, where I was
able to attend to their individual needs.”